Somebody That I Used to Know
by foundaliquorstore
Summary: After a car accident, Sam's family think that he's dead. Sam, suffering from amnesia, ends up in a hospital where he comes face to face with his ex-boyfriend - although Sam doesn't know it. Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Castiel. Angst, depression, sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Somebody that I used to know

Author:

Rating:

Genre and/or Pairing: AU – Gabriel/Sam, Dean/Castiel

Spoilers: references to characters, scenes and places from Season 1-7

Warnings: None

Word Count:

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Summary: Sam and Gabriel had been in a relationship four years previously when Sam had been at college, which had ended on disastrous terms. Sam, now a successful lawyer, is travelling back home to Kansas with his newly discovered half-brother Adam when his car is hit by a truck. Suffering from amnesia, Sam ends up in a hospital in Iowa, and comes face to face with Doctor Gabriel Novak.

* * *

"So you weren't raised by Dad then?" Adam asked Sam for the umpteenth time. Sighing quietly, Sam glanced away from the road for a moment and smiled joylessly.

"No, we weren't. We were raised by Bobby and Ellen after our mom died in a fire, and dad went off the rails. Alcoholic mess until the day he died." He turned back to the road, and as silence stretched between them Sam relaxed slightly. "Look," he said gently. Adam was sitting shotgun, looking out at the road ahead of them. "I didn't mean to be harsh, it's just that it's the truth; me and Dean call Ellen and Bobby 'Mom' and 'Dad', because they raised us. Maybe if our mom hadn't died in that fire then dad wouldn't have gone the way he did, but that's all just speculating. Bobby says that John Winchester was a good man before the accident, so don't feel too bad about having him as a father, okay? None of us were raised by him, so the fact that you weren't doesn't make you any less our brother, nor the fact that you have a different mom." Sam paused, before a brief smile grew on his face. Glancing back at Adam, who was now smiling as he played with the ring that Sam had shown him, he said, "And trust me, Dean is gonna be so amazed to meet you."

The truck slammed into the side of the Sam's Ford Edge just as he looked back at the road. There was a moment where he could feel the Earth-shattering impact, and then everything went black.

Sam woke up to the smell of burning oil. Everywhere on his body seemed to be in pain, and he winced as he tried to pull himself away from the thing that was pressing on his legs. Unsure of what had happened, he turned to look behind him. He saw the wreckage of his car, flames spewing from one side, and that his legs were trapped in the remains of the driver's seat. Scared at the fact that his mind was curiously blank, Sam made an effort to wriggle his legs out from underneath the squashed metal and cushion. It took him a few moments, but he managed to detach himself from the car. Crawling away as fast as his weak limbs would carry him, Sam managed to get himself to the other side of the deserted road, and not a moment too soon; almost as soon as he reached the opposite sidewalk, the flames that had been licking the car suddenly erupted like a volcano and there was an explosion.

Some part of his muddled brain knew that there was something so much worse than a car explosion happening at that moment, but the terror he felt and his lack of memory meant that the thought got cast aside. Bleary, disorientated, and without a clue in his mind as to who and where he was, Sam Winchester began to stumble down the road.

It was seven o' clock in the evening when Dean got the knock on his front door. Putting down his beer, he put the TV on mute and walked over groggily. Wrenching the door open, he grinned lazily for a moment, before realising that the two people outside his door were cops. The smile slipped off his face in an instant, and he straightened his back quickly.

"Officers," he said in a gruff voice. Panic was rising quickly in Dean and he quelled it quickly. No need to jump to conclusions. The woman and the man looked up at him awkwardly. After a moment's pause, the woman sighed and spoke.

"Are you Dean Winchester?" Dean nodded.

"Present."

"I regret to inform you that your brother Samuel has been in an accident." Cold hard dread flooded his body. _No._ Grabbing his jacket from the back of the sofa, Dean ran out of the door and slammed it shut. The Yale lock ensured that he didn't have to lock the door, and he was already heading towards his Impala before the police had realised what was happening.

"Sir!" called out the female officer. "Sir, please—"

"Where is he? Where is Sam? What- what hospital is he at?" Dean fumbled over the last sentence, his fear evident in his voice. The two officers looked at him pityingly. The male officer spoke softly.

"Your brother's car was hit by a truck. There was an explosion, and a huge amount of damage... I'm so sorry, but Samuel Winchester died in the accident. I'm sorry." And the officer genuinely meant it, too. But Dean didn't care about the sympathy from two strangers. The words that they had said, however. The news they had brought...

Dean slumped against his car, shaking his head as his whole body began to shake. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't be. Not his Sam. Not his little Sammy. He'd worked so hard to protect him from danger. It couldn't be true. They must have got the wrong person. It couldn't, it couldn't...

The hospital was in Falls City, Nebraska, and it took almost two hours for Dean, Bobby and Ellen to arrive. In that time they sat in silence, Bobby and Ellen as pale as snow, Dean completely refusing to believe that it was Sam who'd been found. Upon arriving at the hospital, they were ushered down to the mortuary where they were lead over to a body covered in a white sheet. Bile was rising in Dean's throat, but he clung onto the fact that the corpse seemed shorter than Sam. Maybe they had got the wrong person.

Before the cover was pulled back, the doctor spoke to them quietly.

"There was a lot of fuel in the car, which is why it exploded as violently as it did. Unfortunately, this also meant that there was a lot of boiling oil around and... well, I'm afraid there was some quite horrific burns. The body is... I regret to say that this poor man is barely recognisable. I must inform you that the sight you are about to see is rather upsetting, and if you wish to reconsider-"

"Show him." Said Dean in a deadly quiet voice. The doctor sighed and nodded after glancing at Ellen and Bobby, who were clinging to each other. Slowly, the doctor pulled back to sheet to reveal the mangled remains of a human corpse, black and crisp and... completely unrecognisable. Ellen let out a horrified, strangled sob, and Bobby took a sharp intake of breath. Dean just stared down at the burnt body silently. Perhaps he should be in shock like his mom and dad, but this body... whilst it was horrible what had happened to the man, in his heart Dean knew it wasn't Sam. It couldn't be. Turning to the doctor, who looked at the family with grim sympathy, Dean shrugged.

"I'm sorry dude, but this ain't my brother." The doctor sighed again, and reached into a green box on the sideboard that contained what looked like plastic bags of evidence. After a moment he pulled out one that contained a small object and handed it to Dean.

"This was found on the body. Is it your brothers?" Dean slid the object out of the bag and onto the palm of his hand, and trembled as he saw what it was. A ring. A thick, gold ring. His fingers shaking, his certainty gone, Dean turned the ring over to see the familiar W symbol carved into the gold. It was their father's ring – their birth father, John, not Bobby – and Sam had inherited it for his eighteenth birthday. He never took it off. The only person who he'd ever let touch it was Dean and that was only because he was his brother. Dean knew what it meant if the ring had been found on the body. Sam wasn't stupid enough to let his car _and _his ring get stolen, which meant only one thing.

Dean slowly raised his gaze from the ring in his hand over to the blackened corpse. Though he may have been completely unrecognisable, Dean now knew that this was Sam. After ten seconds, he collapsed.

_I wish I knew my name,_ thought Sam as he wandered down a road. _I wish I knew where I was going._ Arms prickling in the cold painfully, Sam rolled his tongue in his mouth. He had been walking for hours now, and he still didn't know where he was. Daylight had faded into darkness, and now he was lost _and_ freezing. Dehydrated but cold, Sam knew that he was running out of energy quickly, and that if he wasn't careful he'd pass out on the side of the road.

It was at that moment that a battered old Mustang drove past Sam, it's lights blinding him and causing him to raise his painfully burnt arms to cover his eyes. The car drove past for a few meters, then slowly began to reverse until it stopped right next to Sam. The driver's window rolled open and a pale man with messy black hair and wide, shockingly blue eyes leaned out of it. He looked at Sam carefully once over before speaking.

"Are you alright?" The man's voice was surprisingly low, but it was filled with so much genuine concern that Sam was reassured.

"Yeah, yea-" he paused, and thought about it for a moment. "No. No, I'm not okay at all. I don't know where I'm going, I don't even know where I am." He looked at his big hands, covered in small cuts from the accident earlier that day. Whispering more to himself then to the man in the car, Sam spoke softly, "I don't even know who I am."

There was a pause of silence where Sam was lost in thought, until-

"Get in the car." Sam looked up.

"Excuse me?" The man gestured to the shotgun seat beside him.

"You need a doctor. I'm heading to a hospital myself, to visit my brother who is a doctor there. You clearly have amnesia, and those injuries on your hands and arms look fresh. They need to be treated, and if you don't know where you are going then you should see no problem in going to Clarinda General Hospital to get them sorted out." He paused, staring up at Sam. Sam had a feeling he should be wary about getting into a stranger's car, but the man was right – he needed to get his injuries treated and besides, he was probably not going to be able to walk much further anyway.

That being said, it wasn't until Sam met the man's gaze that he got into the car. Because in those eyes Sam had seen nothing but absolute honesty, and what was quite possibly innocence. This man really was just a good Samaritan.

When Sam had buckled in his seatbelt, the man drove off again, not driving at a particularly fast rate as though to keep the car from falling apart. After a few minutes of silence, the man spoke.

"If you haven't got a name, what should I call you?" Sam thought for a moment.

"I don't know. You pick a name." The man frowned.

"I feel uncomfortable giving you a name."

"It'll only be until I can remember my real one." Sam reassured him. The handsome man (because he was, Sam noticed, rather attractive) thought for a few minutes before slowly saying a name.

"Sasquatch." Sam grinned before he could stop himself.

"Isn't that... Isn't that some sort of comic book guy?" He asked slowly. The man nodded, a small smile playing on his lips.

"It's because you're very tall, like the character. My brother, the one who's a doctor, used to love those comics and all of their movie adaptations. I think you'll like him, though I warn you that he can be a little crazy at times." Sam nodded, smiling. He decided he liked that name. Sasquatch. He had a strange, vague feeling that he'd been called it before, but he couldn't reach the memory no matter how hard he tried. Suddenly, a thought came to him.

"How could I remember a comic book character and not my name?" The man shrugged, only glancing away from the road for a second.

"There are many interesting theories about different forms of amnesia. Some people have to learn about the entire world again, whereas others like you only lose their personal memories, not actual knowledge. I've read some of these papers and must admit they are fascinating." Sam nodded. He was pretty sure that he liked reading.

"Hey," said Sam abruptly. "I never asked your name." The man glanced at him again, smiling slightly.

"Castiel. My name is Castiel Novak."

**A/N: Sorry if this is awful; it's unbeta-d and I haven't written fan fiction in ages. I think this fic will be about six chapters long, but I'm not quite sure. Probably won't be much shorter/longer than that, though. **


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness

Like resignation to the end, always the end

So when we found that we could not make sense

Well you said that we would still be friends

But I'll admit that I was glad it was over

Doctor Gabriel Novak hadn't thought of Sam Winchester in over an hour. That was an impressive amount of time for him he thought as he strolled down the hospital corridor towards his next patient's room. Winking at Doctor Talbot as she walked past, Gabriel seemed the picture of a bubbly person. No one knew that he was on anti-depressants. But, he conceded, no one should know. To everyone in the hospital he was happy-go-lucky, cheery Doctor Novak, a kind thirty two year old who could charm even the grumpiest person. He was often referred to as the funniest Doctor too, and he would always smile at that. It was said that the funniest people were the most depressed, after all.

Swinging around the doorframe into his patient's room, Gabriel grinned brightly at an the elderly lady who he would be treating. She sat in the bed quietly and wore an expression of worry until she saw Gabriel. A soft smile grew across her worn face, and her eyes lit up gently. She seemed to be around seventy and had white hair pulled into a loose bun. She looked thin and sickly, and Gabriel glanced down at the chart in his hand.

Shelly Bates, sixty-seven, cancer. Her outlook wasn't good. Gabriel looked up at her, smiling reassuringly.

"Hello Mrs. Bates-"

"Please call me Shelly," she glanced at the badge on his white lab coat "Doctor Novak." Gabriel nodded, his smile never waning.

"Alright, Shelly. You'll have to call me Doctor in front of my colleagues or they'll tease me, but whilst we're alone please do call me Gabriel." His amber eyes glittered mischievously and seemed to brighten Shelly's face. Perching on the edge of her bed, Gabriel sighed. "So Shelly, I see you've been here before." She nodded.

"Yes, I have had cancer for three years. It has come and gone many times. So yes, I have visited this hospital quite a lot, although I've never had the pleasure of meeting such a lovely young man as you before." Gabriel chuckled.

"That's very kind of you, but I'm not that young." It was Shelly's turn to chuckle.

"I'm nearly seventy. That's old, kid. You look about, what, twenty-nine, thirty?"

"Thirty-two actually." She nodded.

"That's still young. Honestly, you have most of your life ahead of you. I probably won't even survive until the end of this month." Sadness tinted her gaze, though her eyes were still filled with a gentle kindness. Gabriel felt a stab of sorrow in his heart, and though he was an expert at hiding his true emotions it seemed that Shelly Bates could see right through him. "Now, now, sweetheart, don't feel sorry for me. I've known people who've died younger than I am now." Gabriel met her gaze, his smile slipping from his face to be replaced with a troubled expression.

"Don't talk like that, Shelly. I promise I am going to try my hardest to get this cancer to remiss, you understand? You're going to be fine. It says on your chart that you've had chemo therapy before and it's worked, so I'm going to make sure you get started again as soon as possible, okay?" He was speaking rather fiercely by the end of his speech, and he was disconcerted by his patient's sympathetic expression. She could see unshed tears in her doctor's eyes, and had a very gentle voice when she next spoke.

"Doctor Novak, Gabriel. What's wrong?" He shook his head, pulling back slightly. His guards were up, so he was sure that she was talking about his sympathy for her.

"I just don't want you talking like that, like there's no hope. It's not good for you." To his surprise, she shook her head.

"No kid, cancer isn't good for me. But that's not what I meant – what's wrong with _you_? There's obviously something that's just eating you up inside, and I'm quite good at helping with people's problems. I used to be a councillor, you know." Fear crept up in Gabriel, and he quickly slipped off the bed and towards the door. Turning back to look at her, he plastered on his normally fool-proof false smile and tapped the chart jovially.

"Hey, what are you talking about? I'm fine, me. Always am! Now I'm going to go and get your chemo scheduled, and we'll have you up and about in no time, won't we?" Fleeing the room, Gabriel dropped the chart off casually at the nurses' desk and walked as normally as he could until he reached an empty corridor. Darting into a medical supply closet, he shut the door with a snap, turning the light on before leaning back against one of the shelves, breathing heavily.

His mask disappeared, his expression crumbling into one of absolute desolation. Tears that he had fought from falling before now dribbled down his face miserably, and his breathed caught as he breathed in. It was such a struggle, living like this. Pretending that he was okay, that he was a happy person. Not even his brother knew what he had done four years ago, only that it had resulted in him packing up and moving from Kansas to Iowa in a hurry.

But Gabriel could never forget.

He'd never forget what he did to Sam.

The death threat that had hung over Gabriel's head was, he knew, still very real if he was ever found by Sam's brother. Which is why he could never apologise. He could never make up for the terrible mistake that he had made. He could never go back.

And Sam, oh Sam. Gabriel trembled in the supply closet, nearly-silent sobs wracking his body. He'd loved that man more than anyone. And he'd broken him.

Gabriel reached into the inside pocket of his medical coat and, with shaking hands, pulled out the half-empty bottle of pills that he always had with him. There were two types of medicine in the bottle, one of which was a red and yellow capsule and the other of which was a circular white pill. The capsules were the anti-depressants that he'd stolen from the hospital. He knew which pills he needed today.

Turning the lid and pulling it off, Gabriel tipped out some of the medicine into the palm of his hand. His fingers trembling, he dropped the red and yellow capsules back inside the bottle and held the remaining white pills in his hand.

Screwing the lid back on the bottle, Gabriel returned it to his pocket before opening his palm and looking at the four painkillers lying in it. Raising his hand to his lips, he let another tear fall before he closed his eyes and tipped all four pills into his mouth. Swallowing the painkillers loudly, he shuddered. He knew that he had an addiction, and he'd seen from his patients what it could do to a person, and whilst he'd normally do all he could to save a patient from their addiction, he didn't care when it came to himself. Because he deserved it for what he'd done. And even though the pills didn't actually make him feel better, he got some sort of grim satisfaction from the fact that he was slowly killing himself, because the truth was that either he'd kill himself or Dean would. And he'd rather torture himself for what he'd done than cause anymore hurt to Sam Winchester's family.


End file.
